


Devil's in the Details

by Lacerta26



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Getting Together, Historical, Idiots in Love, Longing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-02 10:34:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20274499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacerta26/pseuds/Lacerta26
Summary: How can he put into words how it felt to cling to the scraps of what Aziraphale could give him. How it felt to have Aziraphale’s ethereal hands on him like a blessing and a damnation. Always so tender even as Crowley leaned into it, wanted it to hurt a bit, demanding praise like he wanted it to be punishment. Punishment for wanting an angel. Punishment for loving an angel who couldn’t love him back.*Aziraphale and Crowley through the years.





	Devil's in the Details

**2018 - London**

‘We’ve done this before. Lots of times,’ says Aziraphale, his breath hot on the side of Crowley’s neck, hands at his waist. They’re in the back room of the bookshop a day out from the end of the world and Aziraphale has him pressed up against a wall, one kept curiously free of books for this exact purpose Crowley can’t help but suspect, kissing him soundly, desperate relief and fearful hope. 

Crowley kisses back, until he doesn’t; closes his eyes, sinks slightly against the wall, with Aziraphale’s deceptively strong bulk holding him up, and thinks back over the centuries, the millennia, to hands down trousers or inching under hemlines to where he was always hard and aching, wet and wanting. He could not deny himself or Aziraphale before so what can possibly be giving him pause now? They have escaped the constant threat of heaven and hell, have no one but themselves to answer to and yet he breaks the kiss, turns away.

Aziraphale steps back but keeps his hands on Crowley’s hips. His face is broken with concern, eyebrows drawn up, ‘my dear? Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed, I…’ 

He moves to step back even further and the hollowness inside Crowley’s chest yawns wide, like an impossible ache.

‘No, no, angel…’ he’s babbling, losing coherency fast, as he scrambles to keep Aziraphale close even as arms come round him, hauling him in and holding him tight. 

‘Can you tell me, Crowley?’

Can he? How can he put into words how it felt to cling to the scraps of what Aziraphale could give him. How it felt to have Aziraphale’s ethereal hands on him like a blessing and a damnation. Always so tender even as Crowley leaned into it, wanted it to hurt a bit, demanding praise like he wanted it to be punishment. Punishment for wanting an angel. Punishment for _ loving _ an angel who couldn’t love him back. 

**41AD - Rome **

It was Rome the first time. So many things happened for the first time in Rome. To Crowley, to the world; his first oyster, his first kiss from an angel, the rise and fall of empires. 

‘We can have this, can’t we?’ Aziraphale says and he doesn't mean the food. 

They’ve moved on from the house brown to a lovely little red, taken the bottle, merry and laughing, back to Crowley’s lodgings. It's so warm and Aziraphale is flushed from the wine and the heat, the drapings of his toga all askew; an angel of the Lord and an ungodly temptation made flesh just for Crowley. Perhaps it's another test he thinks obliquely as Aziraphale tumbles him into bed with sweet kisses and even sweeter touches but it's one, Crowley discovers, he's perfectly happy to fail.

By the morning Aziraphale's gone and Crowley is left aching; both a physical reminder of the nights exertions and a metaphysical longing - something beyond articulation. Ineffable his arse. He over compensates by getting incredibly drunk before the sun is hot in the sky overhead and may have destabilised several upcoming political dynasties by accident. He got a commendation for those two months of turmoil. God, satan, someone knows what he’d have gotten for defiling an angel, although Aziraphale had done most of the actual defiling. 

And as so often happens the first time leads to the second time leads to the third. Habit begets habit and each time there’s more guilt and less regret or more regret and less guilt, depending on your perspective. How much of this have we got to look forward to, how long can the pretence last, what will this uneasy kinship between us become? Next time will I have the guts to say what I really mean, will he? 

They could justify everything except the thing they’d be forgiven for: love. 

**1374 - Scotland **

Crowley hates the fourteenth century; it never stops raining, he is forever having to ride horses and the Black Death has kept Aziraphale so busy he consequently has very little time for their Arrangement.

On a remote Scottish island, during a feast to honour a visit from King Robert II, Crowley spots him, across the Great Hall, shining golden and smiling and all Crowley feels is relief. He’s long since lost track of whether Hell is on the side of the English or the Scottish or indeed which direction he is meant to be influencing the current Laird. His clothes are itchy and the men of the island are extraordinarily taken with his hair and won’t leave him alone. They all have red hair, Lord knows why his is so special. He knows he’ll get in trouble if he goes off script and gives them a taste of their own medicine. He’s a demon; divine retribution isn’t his remit. 

‘Hello, Aziraphale.’

‘Ah, Crowley!’ Aziraphale beams at him, ‘you look lovely.’ 

Crowley adjusts his dress and casts a mullish eye over the room, ‘don’t you start, I've had enough of these men, leering over me.’ 

‘Oh my dear, I apologise, I merely meant…’

Crowley softens, ‘it’s fine. I know that you don’t...that you’re not…we’re not _ men _, really.’ 

‘No, no, we’re not that. So what brings you this far north?’

‘Quick temptation. Well, long temptation. Need to get the old Laird over there to take his eye off the ball, let this place fall back to the English,’ he’s shocked by his sudden honesty, he never normally reveals quite so many details quite so quickly but he’s been here for _ weeks _ and nothing ever changes, ‘you could give me a hand, if you like? Political machinations were always more your sort of thing.’

Aziraphale looks momentarily stricken and Crowley finds himself sick to have been the one to cause it, ‘I’d really rather not get involved. I have my own orders.’

Crowley capitulates quickly, ‘right, no, of course. Wine?’ 

Later Aziraphale puts his hand on Crowley’s thigh, tentative and gentle, ‘I did mean it, you do look lovely,’ and Crowley is helpless to resist. 

It’s a dark corner, the candles burning low and no one sober enough to pay them any mind. Aziraphale’s hand moves slowly, finds his way, by some miracle, beneath the layers of Crowley’s skirts to the heat of him, the warm, wet folds of him, and Crowley shudders, thighs pressed together, urging Aziraphale on. 

‘Not here,’ he hisses, ‘not here. My room is in the north west tower.’

Aziraphale moves inside him slowly, far too slowly. 

‘Tell me again.’

‘What?’ Aziraphale’s voice cracks with the effort, the movement of his hips. 

‘Tell me what you thought when you saw me earlier.’

A pause, as if Aziraphale can’t bring himself to say and then, ‘I was so pleased to see you, my dear. This century has been so troublesome, for us, for them, and then there you were, oh my, Crowely, you looked beautiful.’ 

Crowley pulls Aziraphale closer with fingernails digging in the soft flesh of his back, ‘again.’ 

‘You lovely thing, my love, my love,’ it’s like a dam breaking and Aziraphale picks up his pace as he tumbles towards his release, thoughts knocked loose and honest. 

Crowley closes his eyes and follows him over, follows him down. 

**1755 - Venice**

Venice is shit. Venice is stifling and stinking and Crowley wants to leave. He’s thinking about holing up in Murano with the glassmakers until the carnival is over but he knows Aziraphale is here, he can feel it; a symphony of Grace cutting through the sin. 

Frankly, the clothes and the food would be enough to get the angel across the lagoon. Indulging is easy; Aziraphale takes to hedonism and pleasure like a duck to water. He’ll take his pleasure in Crowley, and good Lord, the pleasure he gives in return. It’s part of the dance they fall into as easy as breathing. Crowley advances with business, Aziraphale parries with refusals and excuses and then there are consolation prizes in the form of drinks, a spot of dinner, kisses, offers to go to bed. 

But angels don’t dance, not really. 

This angel is dancing tonight, though. In a glittering palazzo, not far from the Rialto Bridge Aziraphale accepts every dance and every dance brings him closer to Crowley. 

‘My dear, you’re lurking.’

‘I am a demon, it’s part of the job description,’ he gestures to the red of his coat, the grinning devil of his mask.

Aziraphale, in baby blue cherubic garb and soft, white wings, smiles wickedly and extends a hand, ‘I hear tell that demons are quite adept at dancing?’

Against his better nature Crowley smiles, lets his mood lift and takes Aziraphale’s hand, ‘unlike angels. You’ll have to let me lead.’

‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’ 

They join the circling couples, and then some, wending their way round the ballroom. There’s little rhyme or reason to the dancing now it’s increasingly inebriated and increasingly descending into indiscretion. Aziraphale still seems pretty sharp, close in Crowley’s arms, ‘what are you up to, angel? I thought I was here so you didn’t have to be.’ 

Aziraphale looks at him and away in that infuriating manner of his, ‘yes, well, that was the plan but then I remembered how beautiful Venice is this time of year and Signora Grimani had invited me and she throws such wonderful parties.’

Crowley’s heart soars traitorously in his chest. Aziraphale knew he would be here and sought him out; the food, the wine, the dancing, these are all excuses. 

‘And you? How did the blessing go?’ Aziraphale inquires guilessly. 

‘I acquitted myself adequately, angel. The sum total of sin perpetrated over the course of the carnival will be significantly diminished compared to last year,’ he gives his best lascivious grin, one that suggests they can contribute to the statistics themselves in various directions, ‘I couldn’t do better than that, I’m not a…’ 

‘Miracle worker?’ says Aziraphale, smirking, the bastard, ‘and how are you fixed for the rest of the evening?’ 

Crowley’s always been a big fan of excuses. 

They make their way through cobbled streets, shining with a recent fall of rain. It never really gets dark in Venice, the canals and the streets are always shining. It never gets quiet either; the sound of the water, the revelry spilling from every building.

Aziraphale’s hand keeps brushing against his and Crowley is seized by the overwhelming urge to grab hold and never let go but suddenly Aziraphale’s hands are busy, pushing Crowley through a door, then back against it. 

‘Where are we?’ he asks breathlessly, arms wrapped around the angel’s shoulders, fingers finding the soft feathers of Aziraphale’s ersatz wings.

‘I decided to take apartments, make a holiday of it,’ Aziraphale shrugs, seeing no irony in an angel frequenting a place so known for iniquity. Or rather, resolutely closing his eyes and turning his back on the irony but thankfully not the iniquity. 

Crowley opens his mouth to make this very point but Aziraphale’s hands have finally made their way into his trousers and it becomes altogether more important to thrust into the tight circle of his fist and murmur wordless nonsense into the damp curve of his neck which might, if anyone cared to listen, sound like ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’

**1862 - London**

Arguments come so easy to Crowley it’s just asking a lot of questions really loudly. Questions come easy too, it’s the answers that are the problem. 

They don’t always contain forgiveness. 

**1914 - France**

‘I wish you wouldn’t do that, you know,’ says Aziraphale sitting up on the bench he’d been lying on. He _ says _ he doesn’t sleep but he’s been known to doze; Crowley’s caught him at it enough times. 

Crowley glances back at him from the entrance to the dugout, feigns innocence, ‘do what, angel?’ 

Aziraphale doesn’t so much roll his eyes as let an air of utter exasperation permeate the room as he gestures to the cigarette in Crowley’s hand, ‘smoke. It’s terribly bad for you.’

‘It’s terribly bad for them. Makes no difference to me.’

Smoking had been one of Hastur’s best ideas. Worst ideas. Whatever. 

‘Besides there’s bugger all else to do.’ 

He looks back out onto the trench. All is quiet; the silence oppressive, heavy with the threat of worse to come.

‘What are you doing here, Captain Fell? You can’t save all of them.’

Aziraphale wrings his hands fretfully, ‘I know, I know. Got a note from Gabriel just last week saying I’m not to exceed the quota of miracles assigned for this decade but I couldn’t just leave them all. The war’s only just started - if they don’t get killed in the fighting, they'll get sick or injured. And that’s to say nothing of the young men fighting for the other side. Michael was very clear on whose side we’re to be on but most of them are just boys really, on either side of the conflict and…’ he narrows his eyes, ‘what are _ you _ doing here? Please, Crowley, don’t tell me you’re making it worse?’

Crowley lets his face soften into something like reassurance; all this talk of sides, all this death and destruction, it’s _ hell_, it cuts close to the bone. 

‘No, our official line is we’re keeping out of it. Letting the humans do their worst.’

‘And you? This doesn’t look like keeping out of it,’ says Aziraphale, hopefully, taking in Crowley’s uniform. Private A. J. Crowley will make it out of this war alive, that’s for sure. 

‘I’m just appraising the situation. Thinking of heading over to Mons for the first major engagement next month.’ 

Aziraphale nods and they are quiet for a while before, ‘do you remember the last time we were in France?’

‘Sure I do. I didn’t think the humans could get much worse but this is…’ he gestures vaguely and doesn’t look Aziraphale in the eye, doesn’t think he can risk it. 

He’s always reaching out in offering as Aziraphale turns away but not today. His refusal is not meant to be cruel it's just that this is bigger than the both of them, for now. 

‘Did you want?’ Aziraphale shifts slightly as if to make room. Crowley knows that in the time it would take for him to stride across the tiny dugout the bench will be miraculously big enough for two.

‘Not tonight, angel. Go back to sleep. I’ll keep an eye on them.’

Aziraphale huffs, ‘I don’t sleep,’ but he looks so grateful, bone-weary and exhausted as he lays back down, his face like an alabaster saint. Crowley can feel the Grace the angel has been spreading too thin receding as he finally relaxes, sure in the knowledge that Crowley won’t let his post go unmanned. 

Crowley finishes his cigarette, leaves the rest of his tobacco for Aziraphale, despite his protestations it’s a human habit they both seem to pick up in times of stress, and heads out into the rain and tense silence of no man’s land. There will be an angel, of sorts, on the battlefield tonight.

**1967 - London**

‘You go to fast for me, Crowley,’ says Aziraphale and Crowley is a wreck. 

What does that mean? You take too many liberties, you push me to say the words catching in my throat when you know I _ can’t. _I have given you everything I can please don’t ask me for more. 

**1987 - London**

They don’t fuck every time they meet. 

Crowley calls it that in his head although he knows the angel would probably object. He has an utterly destabilising assumption that if pressed aziraphale would call it ‘making love’ but he’s as well versed in repression as Crowley so perhaps not. There are so many unspoken rules between them, so many lines in the sand and the significance of this being the one Aziraphale has chosen to cross is not one Crowley likes to dwell on.

How many times has he wanted to ask, ‘who else have you done this with?’, every time Aziraphale kisses him differently, touches him with surety borne of practice, after decades, centuries of absence. It’s so very human, like food and books and fast cars and sleeping, Aziraphale compartmentalising every little facet of his life on earth. Locking Crowley away in a box labelled: demon, foul fiend, hereditary enemy. 

It doesn’t stop it hurting when he finds Aziraphale with someone else though. This time it’s a club in the city, an unlikely place for an angel but Crowley’s been dabbling in the stock market again, a highly efficient way of creating a lot of misery, and there he is, ready to thwart. 

Crowley slinks up to the bar, drawing appreciatively lustful glances, and puts a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder, ‘fancy seeing you here, angel.’

The man Aziraphale has been talking to melts back into the crowd as if he’s suddenly realised he needs to be anywhere other than at this bar, talking to this angel.

‘Crowley!’

It’s been twenty years but Aziraphale does not sound pleased to see him tonight. 

‘That took a lot of groundwork. I’m going to have to start all over again now.’

‘Come on, it’s only a shag, plenty more fish in the sea,’ Crowley makes a face, _ I’m the fish_, come on, choose me, tonight, tomorrow, forever. 

Aziraphale rolls his eyes, ‘it wasn’t “just a shag” - mind out of the gutter you foul serpent - he’s in line to become the next prime minister. We have high hopes after your lot picked the last one.’

‘Nothing to do with me. I vote Labour,’ Crowley leans against the bar in a way he hopes is snakey and winning.

‘You do _ not _ vote.’

‘Sure I do. Queues. Too many options on the ballot. Never knowing when the polling station closes. General elections are perfect for causing mischief. Anyway, now that you’ve got rid of him shall we have a dance? I’ve got some really top quality cocaine somewhere,’ he pats himself down, rucking up his t-shirt in the process, _genius_. 

‘No, I really must get back to it. And your cocaine is always terrible,’ Aziraphale scans the crowd to look for the bloke again. 

Crowley wrinkles his nose, ‘whatever, angel, don’t hold out hope. He’s having an affair.’

If Aziraphale wasn’t sat on a bar stool he would literally stomp his foot in annoyance, ‘oh, for goodness sake! The wheels are in motion now, there’ll be no stopping it. Urgh. He’ll have to do I suppose.’

‘Better luck next time, eh,’ Crowley tries to look contrite but Aziraphale, lost in thought, turns to look at him as if he’s only just noticed he’s there, his face going through a complicated series of emotions before arriving at something that looks quite like _ fuck it _ which he then says - 

‘Fuck it.’

Crowley’s eyebrows attempt to make a break for it via is hairline, ‘what did you just say?’ and Aziraphale shoots him a poisonous look. 

‘I said fuck it. Shall we get drunk?’

‘Anything you want, angel.’

They don’t fuck every time but every time takes them both further away from Heaven and further away from Hell and brings them here - closer to each other. It’s two steps back for every step forward and if hands and mouths and stolen breaths are all he can have so be it; snogging sweaty and messy on a dance floor they both look two decades too old to be on (two decades, six millennia, same difference.) So, they fraternise and they fuck, except when they don’t, and this vulgarity, this crudity of language is what keeps Crowley from tearing his hair out, from Falling all over again, from letting himself feel what he desperately knows is in his fragile _ human _ heart.

‘Take me home, Crowley,’ says Aziraphale at the end of the night, bright and smiling, all thwarting and wiles forgotten as they head back to Soho, together. 

**1992 - West Wales**

They don’t quite do it on purpose but also not quite by accident. They’ve been seeing a lot more of each other recently, spending time together socially, and Crowley is holding on to it like a man drowning, greedy for every moment he can get. Going to the Ritz, as promised, the theatre, picnics in the park. He had wanted to get out of the city and had mentioned as much to Aziraphale who happened to drop into conversation a few days later that he was planning some blessings in Wales next week. Crowley was very proud of his work on the Welsh language. It always paid to see how these things were getting along. 

Something big is coming, he can feel it, big and bad and inconvenient. Aziraphale can feel it too; not a hint of surprise on his face when he opens the door of his little white-washed cottage in Pembrokeshire to Crowley four days into his trip.

‘‘Lo, angel.’

‘Ah, Crowley, I wondered when you’d be along,’ says Aziraphale, beaming as if their assignations over the years have only ever been a source of joy to them both. 

It’s warm in the cottage, and cozy, Aziraphale’s cocoa steaming on the coffee table, a book open next to it. 

‘Did you want a drink?’ Aziraphale asks and Crowley suddenly feels weary to his very bones. 

‘No. No, thanks. Bit tired from all the- no-,’ he sits heavily on the sofa, ‘I’ll just have a rest.’

‘There’s a bedroom upstairs. I won’t be needing it.’

‘This is fine. Just gonna rest my eyes. Carry on with whatever,’ he gestures to the book, the cocoa, as he relaxes into the sofa; infinitely more comfortable than the abomination at Aziraphale’s shop. 

He dimly registers Aziraphale’s answering, ‘very well my dear’, and the warm weight of him sinking into the cushions beside Crowley and then he’s gone, deep into sleep.

When he wakes it’s quiet like it can only ever be in the middle of the night. He’s shifted in sleep to rest his head against Aziraphale’s shoulder and the angel’s hands are carding through his hair; the other hand turning the pages of his book. It’s such a soft touch, gentle but certain, as if Aziraphale knows he’ll be wanted in this way too; how could he not? They’ve touched each other before, so many times and in so many ways, but this feels different, significant in its simplicity.

Aziraphale must sense a change, that Crowley is awake, because his hand stills and he closes his book and with a sigh of utter longing he says, ‘shall we go to bed?’

They don’t know it yet but this will be the last time for a long while. 

Crowley nods wordlessly and they untangle themselves to go up the crooked stairs to the small bedroom full of pale moonlight. Aziraphale stops by the window, looking out into the small garden and when he turns back his eyes are shining with unspilled tears. 

‘It’s so beautiful here. With you.’

‘_Angel _,’ Crowley makes to go to him but Aziraphale shakes his head and smiles, something closing within him. They meet in a kiss that is painful in its sincerity, a wellspring of feeling so deep Crowley feels like he’s drowning, oh so willingly, as Aziraphale lays him out on the narrow bed. Each touch is magnified, from mouth to trailing hand, as they strip each other slowly, move together, over and within each other. 

This is a test Crowley thinks, it has always been a test. How much can we give of ourselves to each other without giving anything away at all and the answer is always the same: everything. 

**2018 - London**

‘What are we?’

‘We’re an angel and a demon. We’re…’

Crowley shakes his head. They’re an aberration; an angel and a demon who love too much and can never say it aloud. Except so much has stayed the same in this world they’ve changed forever, maybe there’s space in it for them now, ‘what are we _ to each other _?’

Aziraphale looks so upset, struggling with the truth and himself, half caught in the past and the brand new world they wait in now. He wrings his hands and says like a plea, ‘oh, Crowley. You’re the love of my life,’ and steps forward to kiss him like it’s the first and only time it’s mattered in 6000 years. But Crowley knows it’s a lie, the last one between them, because it has mattered, every single time.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments always appreciated. 
> 
> Sorry for any historical inaccuracies and the oblique reference to John Major.


End file.
